Your Right to Know

There’ll be no giant golf ball jutting into the sky after all at this month’s Memorial
Tournament in Dublin.

Muirfield residents had lobbied for a golf-ball motif on the new 200-foot-tall water tower along
Dublin Road because it is near the Bogey Inn and a prime parking spot for the Memorial and, this
year, the Presidents Cup in October.

The city administration, however, recommended instead that it be painted with the city’s
ubiquitous shamrock and the words
City of Dublin. But even that won’t happen.

The city council has scuttled the words
City of Dublin. No other tower is painted that way, and the consensus among members seemed
to be this wouldn’t be a good place to start.

When the city decided to build the $2.2 million tower on 4 acres that were then owned by the
Muirfield Village Golf Club, Shawnee Hills residents objected. The land borders Shawnee Hills, and
officials there asked that the tower be built farther away on the property.

No dice. As Dublin Councilman Mike Keenan said at last week’s meeting: “Given how contentious
that tower was, I think it would be a slap in the face” to have
City of Dublin emblazoned on it.

Someone floated the idea months ago that
City of Dublin also should be painted on the top, facing skyward, so that when the blimp
flies over during the tournaments, Dublin’s brand would be the star.

That suggestion died a silent death.

• • •

Columbus City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. has been trying to muzzle city officials,
including Mayor Michael B. Coleman, who are upset with the firing of Bishop Watterson High School
teacher Carla Hale.

Hale, 57, was fired after she listed the name of her female partner in her mother’s
obituary.

Pfeiffer pleaded with Coleman and others last week to stop giving interviews about the former
gym teacher’s firing because Hale planned to file a complaint with the city’s Community Relations
Commission. Pfeiffer didn’t want city officials’ public comments to muddy the issue.

Coleman wanted to call the archdiocese himself but backed off at his staff’s urging.

Hale filed a complaint on Tuesday that her firing violates a city ordinance that forbids
employers from discriminating based on sexual orientation.

• • •

After a year of tumult at the Fairfield County dog shelter, dog warden Michael E. Miller is
ready for fishing, camping and time with his 12 grandchildren.

The Fairfield County commissioners accepted his retirement on Tuesday, to become effective on or
before March 1, 2015. In the meantime, Miller will become the shelter’s director of operations, at
the same $29.03 hourly wage he is paid as dog warden. He will serve in that role as the next dog
warden transitions.

Miller, 59, was the focus of controversy last year when animal-welfare campaigners picketed and
lobbied the county to change the shelter euthanasia method from carbon monoxide to lethal
injection. The commissioners eventually obliged.

The activists also wanted Miller gone, but he and the commissioners say he’s not being forced
out. Miller said he was worn down by all the commotion and this is just a good time to go.